i THOUGHT i was taking a break from concerts but ticketmaster and livenation have been making my entire life as of late, so my favorite concert buddy (BT) and i headed to charlotte for the day for a much needed break and to catch up with sir sly! they are touring with the kongos right now on a super crazy schedule.
we just canNOT get a normal picture. like ever.
BT and i love sir sly (not so much with the kongos), and we anxiously awaited the show at vgbg next door eating really good nachos, playing sorry, and drinking hard cider. it was a pretty cool place, and the food was good!
there had been a line outside of the fillmore when we arrived about 2 hours before the show, but we weren't sure why since the place barely had more than 100 people waiting when we got in. it eventually filled and we quickly realized that charlotte has a mutated water supply because EVERYONE was tall. i'm talking both men and women WELL over 5'9" and in a huge quantity. i have never seen so many tall people in one place in my life, and standing at 4'9" and 5'3", we didn't have the easiest time seeing the show despite being on a riser.
we got some drinks and chatted with the people beside us for a while - they were two parents who brought their 14-year-old daughter to see the show.
i then began to question my life choices as a 27-year-old who attends the same concerts as 14-year-olds.
shame aside, it was a great show!
"silhouettes" is their most popular song right now, and while it's really catchy, it is definitely not the best in their repertoire. the lead singer has a great voice, and it's showcased much better on other songs, like "caught me by surprise":
next up was sir sly, and they were amazing (just as they were in raleigh in september).
a guy behind me was nice enough to record the entirety of "you haunt me" so i could dance around like a woman child.
their sound is just so unique. it's got this spacey (BT calls it "other-wordly") quality that is absolutely phenomenal. my phone couldn't even begin to do it justice. that hasn't stopped me from watching it multiple times already though...
sir sly is known for "gold," which was featured in a phone or car commercial last year. it's a really great song, though my favorite right now is "easy now."
next up is alt-J and tycho in april!
been to any concerts lately? who are your favorites right now?
when i included #12 on my 30x30, it was because i absolutely adore music and the consequential high experienced after hearing your favorite artist(s) live - there's really nothing that can equate with that feeling.
what i did not intend, however, was to attend all five within one month, but september is quickly devouring all of the spots! sn: if i had money, i would sooooo be going to this one, too. i've been dying to see future islands, tove lo, and panama wedding!
i spent last weekend in raleigh at the 95X big shindig, and though i had my reservations after trillectro, i have to say that this was one of the best musical experiences of my life!
i left blacksburg with my coworker and her husband on saturday afternoon to crash at his brother's house for the festival the next day.
we got sushi and they got fro-yo (i got a cup of sour patch kids and random fruits... yes, i am 26 years old), and we watched doctor who before passing out.
the weather called for rain the next day (which immediately made me think this was some sort of sick joke), so we spent an hour on a poncho hunt before finally heading over to the show at walnut creek amphitheatre.
unfortunately, we arrived as iamdynamite was ending their set, but they seemed pretty cool and i will definitely check them out later.
next up was sir sly, and they were SOOOOO good! i didn't think i knew who they were until they played "gold," which i then recognized. they are AWESOME live.
the entire band is just sick. many of them play multiple instruments and the musicality of it all was just phenomenal. my coworker and i mingled amongst the crowd (who were all like 12 or 57 for whatever reason) to get some shots and vids.
note: my iphone does none of the artists justice by the way, but they were all SO awesome!
...
after their set, we bought some "merch" (as my coworker's husband says in a mocking hipster tone)...
...including this cool bear hands shirt i picked up and will probably wear incessantly over the next few weeks. it is definitely going in my festival bag for music midtown next weekend!
after that, we headed back to the main stage to see wolf gang, a UK band that i ended up loving, too! i hadn't heard of them before sunday, and they will definitely have a place in my itunes.
...
see how few people there were?! it was crazy! and i felt awful for the band because they were so good!
we ran over to catch big data at the second stage (drummer and female lead are both SICK)...
...
... and then ran back to see bear hands on the main stage. bear hands is one of my favorites, and i think their set would have been super hype had there been more than 7.3 people in the audience. *tears*
...
none of us had heard of the next acts - foxy shazam and pretty reckless - but we were too lazy to go back to the second stage. so we sat in the theater awaiting pretty reckless' performance.
they started...
... and then we left promptly for a self-imposed "intermission."
i don't know why the organizer of the festival thought this metaly band talking about going to hell would fit in with all the other acts, but that's none of my business. *sips tea*
after using that set time to eat, we headed to the second stage to see fuel, an act to which i was actually looking forward once i remembered who they were.
um... negative.
lots of f-bombs were dropped, the lead was drunk off of his ass, the drummer was double-fisting bottles of liquor, and the word "va jay jay" was thrown around a few times.
honestly, that performance would've been a shoe-in for true life: i used to be relevant but now i'm a washed-up old rocker with no dignity.
we had no qualms about leaving early to head back over to the main stage in anticipation for fitz and the tantrums.
and then the rain came...
... and we kept rocking.
so did the peeps on the lawn. people started filling in the amphitheater and the lawn in droves. you couldn't see any green once fitz ended, but there were still a lot of empty seats for whatever reason.
fitz put on a great show - not the best i've seen (and not as great as expected given how much i love their studio songs), but still really fun nonetheless!
...
and then....
ladies and gentlemen (do guys read my blog?): i give you foster the people.
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because i am such an epic loser, my battery died in the middle of the opening song. but good lord, they are FLIPPING PHENOMENALLY FANTASMICALLY AMAZEFACETICLES! they were SO GOOD! "are you what you want to be" gave me CHILLS!!!!
mark sounds absolutely amazing: his range is sick, his energy is infectious, and he is like the coolest ever. i seriously have a grown woman crush on him. i will definitely be at the next foster show that's close and relatively inexpensive. all of these concerts are making me poor...
... but in the words of mark foster: "music brings us together - we're a community experiencing the same thing at the same time, and there's no better feeling."
amen!
cheers to a fantastic festival weekend.
2 down, 3 to go!
ps. yes, we left before weezer. no, i don't feel bad about it.
